Sri Lanka board take steps to improve school cricket

Better late than never seems to be the authorities' attitude concerning the falling standards of Sri Lankan school cricket. Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) have taken a serious view of the precarious situation that exists now and decided to work in tandem with the Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association (SLSCA).

"For a long time the SLC did not know what the SLSCA was doing and vice versa. This has led to a decline in school cricket standards. We want to put school cricket in order. That is essential for Sri Lanka cricket and it is our main task," said Jayantha Dharmadasa, the SLC chairman. "We are also trying to fund the school association and work with them closely to raise the standard of school cricket which is our nursery. In recent times our school standards have dropped because of limited overs cricket and poor coaching. We want to rectify that.

"What we want to do is to produce cricketers from school level to the national side. Lately, we have not been hearing about any player who could walk into the national side from school," Dharmadasa added. "Where we have gone wrong is the introduction of the points system and limited overs to schools cricket. We will be talking to SLSCA, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Sports to do away with limited overs for Under-15 and below."

Dharmadasa also pointed out that there was a dearth of competent coaches. "All sorts of coaching is going on without a proper licence. We want to conduct workshops and issue a permit for the coaches to go anywhere and coach. We want to help the school coaches and ask them to attend the training program and also extend it to those running private coaching institutions," he said. "We have to make a start somewhere. We want to streamline coaching. The things that we have set in motion today you will see the results from six months to one year."

K Mathivanan, an interim committee member, also spoke along the same lines: "We want the school coaches to attend our workshop. We will give them a licence basically because some of the school coaches who have been there have never played cricket nor have they done any coaching programs.

"We are trying to give recognition to them by having workshop training and issuing them with a licence for one or two years. The schools from which these coaches come will also benefit because we will be helping to improve their standard of cricket."

Mathivanan revealed that SLC will be offering schools astro-turf pitches, which he said were easier to maintain and less costly. "That is much better than playing on matting. It is as good as playing on turf and maintenance is easy. There is a five-year guarantee. Even if it rains, you can get play started in a short time. It is a good project which we will be embarking on." He cited the case of Australian sub-district cricket which is played on astro turf. "The only difference is that you cannot wear boots with spikes."

Mathivanan also said that the SLC was working on a lot of incentive schemes for schoolboys. "If they perform well they will be given scholarships to attend the SLC academy." In the recently concluded Under-19 World Cup held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a former finalist, lost to Bangladesh and failed to qualify for the final.